WHILE he stared, somewhat bewildered, at the inside of a "confusing" photocopier trying to work out what was wrong, Craig Bellamy was sure of only one thing - that wasn't where he wanted to be.

He was 33, one year retired from playing, and yearning to be fully involved in the game he loved.

Bellamy wanted to coach and ahead of his 250th game guiding Storm tonight, rugby league's current master recalled the journey from ditching his tool box, picking up a whistle and finally reaching Melbourne.

It all started in Canberra in 1993 when he coached the Raiders under-21s, before and after an eight-hour day spent making service calls for Xerox around the national's capital.

"For three years I was a photocopier technician. But after all that time I still had no idea what I was doing," Bellamy recalled.

"I used to do a fair bit of phoning in for someone to come out and help me. There were a couple of guys who looked after me pretty well.

"I was fixing a few by the end of it, but they are confusing things."

While there was enough tech support to have the copiers taken care of, Bellamy remembered being a lone soldier when it came to his maiden coaching role, doing everything from putting out the cones to getting the water ready. It was a humble beginning for a man who is now arguably the best football coach, of any code, in the land.

But he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I would get up really early and spend an hour on the video before I went to work, then we trained in the afternoon. It was really time-consuming, but I had the coaching bug," Bellamy told the Herald Sun.

"Coaches now are full time and talk about how busy we are, but if you are doing a job properly for a part-time team you are putting in a lot of hours because you're working as well.

"That's why I reckon coaches, before they become assistant coaches, should become coaches in their own right at a lower level. When you coach an NRL side you have that much help it's not a real picture of what most coaches do.

"Actually looking after the team; you are the coach, the assistant coach, the strength-and-conditioning coach, organising treatment with physios and getting the water ready and setting out the cones and markers for your drills. You have to do all that.

"And that's a really important part of your education I reckon."

Despite his clear coaching abilities - Bellamy won a premiership in 1995 with the Raiders reserve grade team - his only way in to full-time football was through strength-and-conditioning roles.

He had helped out then Raiders coach Tim Sheens - his rival tonight - with opposition analysis.

But Bellamy was more a conditioner than a coach at both the Raiders and the Broncos, where he had moved to in 1998.

In Brisbane, Wayne Bennett was the boss but Bellamy pestered the guru to let him know he was about.

"It wasn't a coaching job at the Broncos. I did the conditioning for the five years I was there," Bellamy said.

"But I used to give Wayne stuff. He never had an assistant as such. He did all the coaching. I just used to give him stuff on the opposition, which they didn't do much of, and it snowballed from there.

"I don't think he was really impressed with it early when I gave him some notes, or told him I had done some video. And slowly but surely, halfway through the first year I started to do a bit of coaching as well."

But even in 2002, his final year at the Broncos before taking the helm at Melbourne, Bellamy had not cracked it for an assistant coach title. He was still the "performance director".

No one doubted his ability to coach though, and when given the chance to control Brisbane while Bennett was away on State of Origin duties, Bellamy led an understrength Broncos outfit to a surprise win over the Wests Tigers.

THAT was enough for Storm officials, including John Ribot, who met with Bellamy in a Brisbane coffee shop and offered him the Melbourne job.

And despite not having been in control of his own team since Canberra, Bellamy believed the philosophy and style he brought to Melbourne was the right one.

"I learned over the years too but that first year I had a very narrow focus on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. They weren't all right ... but I think the foundations of what I believed in, what I thought were important, I thought I got that right," he said.

Four grand final appearances, four minor premierships and a 68.7 per cent winning record, better than anyone else in the game including Bennett (63.1pc), suggests he was indeed right.

But Bellamy has never stopped learning about coaching methods - he often travels to overseas clubs and spent a week with Collingwood this year - as well as his players, even training with them.

"I did it for a five or six years before my achilles and calves packed it in. But running up hills with blokes, doing intervals with them, I used to learn how mentally tough they were. I think I got a fair bit out of that," he said.

"When I couldn't do it any more I used to get in certain positions when we were out doing hills and the like so they couldn't see me. But it wasn't as effective."

Beyond all his methods and theories and philosophies on coaching, Bellamy is a firm believer that his success has been a result of the men who have run out for him 250 times.

That's why he'll celebrate their milestones every day of the week, but said his own achievement wasn't so special.

"I know this sounds confusing, and milestones are important to our players, but sitting in a box 250 times ain't that hard," he said.

"Players have to do all the training, go through the ups and downs, injuries and do a pre-season.

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.